This discovery did not require an Italian navigator sailing under the Spanish flag, nor the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. Instead, the explorers were an intrepid S4GRU Columbus membership group (sorry, restricted to S4GRU sponsors), some handsets, some screenshots, and some speed tests.

Those last two numbers 8640 and 26640 are the paired EARFCNs 8640/26640 of a band 25 additional carrier found this week in the Columbus, OH BTA. Seemingly, not such a big deal. S4GRU and its members have been finding band 25 additional carriers with different EARFCNs in multiple markets for months now. We even have two tracking threads for additional LTE carriers -- one for all three bands, one for band 25.

However, this band 25 additional carrier discovery represents truly a New World for Sprint. It is 10 MHz FDD. Now, that alone is a big deal. But it is actually just the second finding of a 10 MHz FDD carrier that we have had in the past four days. The Champaign-Urbana, IL BTA came first. We hope to follow up with an article on that later.

More importantly, though, the Columbus 10 MHz FDD carrier is a complete refarming of the PCS G block. The standard 5 MHz FDD carrier at EARFCNs 8665/26665 that is omnipresent across the Sprint LTE network is gone -- it is gone forever where this new carrier has appeared in the Columbus BTA.

To dive right in, let us take a look at two screenshots from the Columbus area...

The engineering screenshot shows the new EARFCN pair of 8640/26640. That in and of itself is not evidence of 10 MHz FDD. But you have to understand that those EARFCNs put the center frequencies of the LTE carrier at 1990 MHz (downlink) and 1910 MHz (uplink), which is precisely the dividing line between the PCS C5 block and the PCS G block. Even as Sprint controls both blocks, there is no reason to make that move -- unless to expand LTE carrier bandwidth across both blocks. We will take a deeper look at this with Sprint spectrum holdings in a moment.

Moreover, look at the speed test. With 2x2 downlink MIMO, a 5 MHz FDD carrier maxes out at 37 Mbps. This speed test -- and others gathered by the Columbus network trackers -- greatly exceeds that number. Add up the evidence. It is clearly a 10 MHz FDD carrier.

Back to the spectrum issue, we should have an extensive look at the Sprint spectrum provenance in the Columbus market. Yes, it will be extensive, but I think that you will enjoy the history lesson. The reason is that Columbus holdings are somewhat unique, so this 10 MHz FDD fervor should not be extended elsewhere -- for now.

The PCS D 10 MHz (5 MHz FDD) block and PCS E 10 MHz (5 MHz FDD) block were Sprint's original FCC auction winnings back in 1997. The PCS G 10 MHz (5 MHz FDD) block was awarded to Nextel as compensatory spectrum for its SMR 800 MHz rebanding. Of course, Sprint acquired that nationwide set of licenses in the merger. The PCS C4 10 MHz (5 MHz FDD) block is the most recent acquisition, as low budget wireless operator Revol went kaput and sold off its spectrum.

The PCS C5 10 MHz (5 MHz FDD) block is worth a separate discussion -- because it has an interesting history on several fronts. It was FCC auctioned three times. The first winner was NextWave, which later filed for bankruptcy protection. So, the FCC canceled licenses and auctioned again. Meanwhile, the growth of the wireless industry had caused NextWave's licenses to increase in value, leading to a Supreme Court ruling that the FCC was outside its bounds to confiscate the licenses from the bankrupt NextWave. Thus, that re auction was invalidated. Finally, NextWave reached a financial settlement with the FCC to return some of its licenses, which were "re re auctioned" in 2005. And Wirefree Partners, a DE (Designated Entity) working with Sprint, won the PCS C5 block in Columbus.

That brings us to the second interesting point of spectrum provenance. And this part will certainly veer into editorial content. In FCC auctions, a DE is a small business or minority/woman controlled business that qualifies for bidding discounts. Additionally, the PCS C and F blocks typically were reserved or positioned for DEs. The idea was to increase diversity in the wireless industry. The predecessors of both T-Mobile and AT&T -- through the notorious likes of Cook Inlet PCS, Salmon PCS, et al. -- garnered many of their PCS licenses by way of DEs. Just this year, though, the FCC officially shot down Dish for its use of several DE bidders in the recent AWS-3 auction. No discount for Dish!

VZW and Sprint rarely used such underhanded tactics, but this is one such case for Sprint. Wirefree Partners was a Sprint collaborator, qualified as a DE, won the Columbus license at auction, then later sold the license in full to Sprint.

For a complete Sprint PCS 1900 MHz band plan in Columbus, see the following graphic:

From a historical perspective, what we can see is that Sprint held three non contiguous blocks: PCS D, E, and C5. The additional guard bands due to lack of contiguity of those three blocks were not a great situation, but the total amount of spectrum was more than good enough for CDMA2000. However, when LTE entered the mix, things got truly interesting. That is when the PCS G and C4 blocks entered the stage.

Next, let us look at deployment within Sprint's PCS spectrum holdings in Columbus. Think of the two graphs as before and after. The first, before, and the second, after Columbus 10 MHz FDD discovery:

In the second graph, see how the PCS G block 5 MHz FDD carrier that Sprint users across the country are familiar with has been refarmed, then a new 10 MHz FDD carrier put in its place that spans both the PCS C5 and G blocks.

An almost prophetic piece to all of this comes from the early history of S4GRU. In an article that we published over three years ago, S4GRU identified Columbus as a market that could run a 10 MHz FDD carrier through a combination of the PCS C5 block + PCS G block. Some spectrum holdings have changed that we could not have predicted at that time -- notably, the USCC and Revol spectrum acquisitions. But, remarkably, that possibility of a 10 MHz FDD carrier in Columbus has come to fruition. Read the article if you have not (yes, I wrote it), but you can view the table from it below:

With the elimination of the band 25 carrier at EARFCNs 8665/26665, some may be worried that early single band Sprint LTE handsets will be forced back to EV-DO in the Columbus area. That is a legitimate concern, as many of those single band handsets were originally authorized with the FCC for only 5 MHz FDD, thus cannot use 10 MHz FDD. In refarming all of band 4 W-CDMA to LTE across multiple markets, for a similar example, T-Mobile certainly required affected users to upgrade to new devices or be hung out to dry on GSM.

Even without the Class II filings, though, the expansion to 10 MHz FDD in Columbus should pose no harm to single band handsets. Long before this 10 MHz FDD carrier came to light, S4GRU members found evidence of an additional 5 MHz FDD band 25 carrier located at EARFCNs 8565/26565. See the engineering screenshot below:

In a nutshell, the 5 MHz FDD carrier in the PCS G block has been replaced by an equivalent 5 MHz FDD carrier in the PCS C4 block -- as depicted in the deployment graph and screenshot above.

Now, keep in mind, band 41 remains the high capacity priority for Sprint. This 10 MHz FDD refarming is not yet everywhere even in Columbus -- it has been popping up on various sites, spreading from the outside into the city. And while many other Sprint markets will have an additional 5 MHz FDD carrier in band 25, few will see 10 MHz FDD anytime soon. So, Columbus may serve as something of a testbed. But S4GRU has some educated insight as to where this might be headed next.

As mentioned earlier, downstate Illinois around Champaign-Urbana also has unique spectrum holdings and got the 10 MHz FDD treatment a few days ago. Chicago has a similarly unique yet different spectrum set. But as S4GRU published in another article in 2012, it has a contiguous, green field USCC block of spectrum that now seems to be begging for 10 MHz FDD.

A band 25 additional carrier already resides in that USCC PCS B block disaggregation -- but it is presently 5 MHz FDD. And an additional EV-DO carrier has been added at the bottom of the block. Still, there may be enough spectrum left to expand that 5 MHz FDD to 10 MHz FDD very soon.

The Windy City, are you ready for it? We shall see if S4GRU's short term prediction proves as accurate as its spectrum analysis did three years ago.

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So Sprint is indeed expanding the original carrier into PCS C5 where possible? Awesome! I was mildly worried that they would have to keep the original PCS G carrier at 5x5 for one reason or another into the far future, even where they held PCS C5 as well. Great to know it's flexible.

Edit: I wonder why they didn't just put the 10x10 in PCS C4+C5 and leave the carrier in G running. Maybe they're specifically testing widening of the original PCS G 5x5?

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So why did Sprint delay in this? Especially Chicago would benefit from this.

I suspect that it has something to do with all the new people that have been brought in recently after Network Vision 1.0 didn't live up to its promises. I expect we'll see a number of shifts in what is done with the network now that fresh blood has been brought in to try and recover from the issues Sprint has encountered with their original plan.

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If there doing this then I wouldn't be at all surprised if we say more CDMA carriers being refarmed to LTE, with future devices supporting Band 25 carrier aggregation the same way T-Mobile does with band 4 carrier aggregation.

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If there doing this then I wouldn't be at all surprised if we say more CDMA carriers being refarmed to LTE, with future devices supporting Band 25 carrier aggregation the same way T-Mobile does with band 4 carrier aggregation.

Band 25 carrier aggregation is not coming anytime soon. Sprint will have to rip out the entire PCS infrastructure (LTE Rel 8/9) and put in LTE Rel 11/12 equipment.

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Band 25 carrier aggregation is not coming anytime soon. Sprint will have to rip out the entire PCS infrastructure (LTE Rel 8/9) and put in LTE Rel 11/12 equipment.

Is that what T-Mobile and AT&T have done with their LTE networks to enable carrier aggregation? I was hoping all that "everything can be done with software upgrades" of Network Vision would enable easier upgrades for this sort of thing.

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Is that what T-Mobile and AT&T have done with their LTE networks to enable carrier aggregation? I was hoping all that "everything can be done with software upgrades" of Network Vision would enable easier upgrades for this sort of thing.

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Basically, all Sprint LTE devices. They were never limited to just the PCS G block -- they covered all of band 25.

As stated in the article, a Class II Permissive Change filing may be required for some older single band devices. But all tri band devices going back almost two years now have been 10 MHz FDD capable from the beginning.

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Is it possible that Sprint can start reorganizing frequencies where they can put CDMA/EVDO carriers on the G-block and leverage some on the main block (ex: Los Angeles has 30 MHz A-block). Perhaps they can do a 10x10 LTE carrier in the A-block and then use the remaining 10 MHz in the A-block and 10 MHz in the G-block for all the CDMA/EVDO carriers.

I don't know how much disruption this will cause but I feel at some point Sprint has to make this transition in order to boost overall LTE speeds. But then again some of the older devices (especially older samsung devices that supported only the 5 MHz BWs). Its one of those things that the Sprint management is going to look back and regret why they made that decision at the time. First generation LTE phones....fine just have 5 MHz BW but starting the second generation LTE phones, they should have all been FCC tested for at least 10 MHz BW. That way any future Sprint plans can be more easily implemented without having to worry about shutting people out of LTE.

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Is it possible that Sprint can start reorganizing frequencies where they can put CDMA/EVDO carriers on the G-block and leverage some on the main block (ex: Los Angeles has 30 MHz A-block). Perhaps they can do a 10x10 LTE carrier in the A-block and then use the remaining 10 MHz in the A-block and 10 MHz in the G-block for all the CDMA/EVDO carriers.

The simple answer is no.

In 3GPP2, the PCS G block requires band class 14, while the PCS A-F blocks require only band class 1. We saw at least trace support for band class 14 in some of the WiMAX handsets. Maybe Sprint was leaning that direction if WiMAX became its future.

However, I am not sure that there was ever any actual FCC OET authorization of band class 14 on Sprint handsets. To my knowledge, Public Mobile in Canada was the only operator ever to deploy a band class 14 network. And while Public Mobile still exists as a brand under the Telus umbrella, that band class 14 network is now defunct.

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Edit: I wonder why they didn't just put the 10x10 in PCS C4+C5 and leave the carrier in G running. Maybe they're specifically testing widening of the original PCS G 5x5?

That is a very good question. The spectrum was available, as Sprint holds the upper two thirds of the PCS C block plus the adjacent PCS G block. And, notably, 15 MHz FDD is in the realm of possibilities for the future.

But my understanding from the Columbus tracking group is that the GCI of the 10 MHz FDD carrier is the same as that of the previous 5 MHz FDD carrier. And that may have been the intent. Moving it completely would have required a new GCI.

AJ

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But my understanding from the Columbus tracking group is that the GCI of the 10 MHz FDD carrier is the same as that of the previous 5 MHz FDD carrier. And that may have been the intent. Moving it completely would have required a new GCI.

AJ

Ahh, so this could be a FIT of sorts for widening the original G block carrier to 10x10. I can't think of any other reason for them to risk issues with the original G block carrier instead of using C4+C5, leaving the G carrier untouched.

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Ahh, so this could be a FIT of sorts for widening the original G block carrier to 10x10. I can't think of any other reason for them to risk issues with the original G block carrier instead of using C4+C5, leaving the G carrier untouched.

This may also require less, if any reprogramming in terms of load balancing, since the primary carrier remains the same GCIs -- just expanded to 10 MHz FDD.

I noticed this while driving, so I don't have a picture, but it looks like Sprint is also using a different antenna in LA Metro. It wasn't the KMW antenna pictured here, but it had more beveled front edges and was mounted next to an existing NV 800/1900 panel. Is there a scenario where a 12 port antenna + the existing NV antenna would be used instead of a single hexadecaport antenna? (It had more ports than an 8T8R antenna, but it didn't look quite look like 16.)

My sprint magic box stopped working, got a replacement magic box that's unfortunately doing the same thing. When I first got it in December i had LTE, then I was in bed it stopped as if they were waiting for me at home lol.

In the case of iPhones, VoLTE is supported on the iPhone 6 and later released models: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203078
I’m not sure what VoLTE support is for other makes, but those handsets will eventually upgrade or churn out as part of normal customer churn.
The Airave 3 LTE has support for voice on CDMA, in addition to providing LTE and WiFi Coverage.